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The Standard Celeration Society

Frequently asked questions

This Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page covers questions about the Standard Celeration Society, about Standard Celeration Charting, and about Precision Teaching. Accordingly, you will find it divided into those three sections.

Standard Celeration Society Q & A

What is the Standard Celeration Society?

The Standard Celeration Society is "a collegial organization for all persons who use standard celeration charting in education, human services, business, performance management, parenting or child rearing, and science." Furthermore, it represents:

"a society to encourage the science of human behavior and the Standard Celeration Chart";
"a society to create functional applications derived from the science of behavior";
"a network of users of the Standard Celeration Chart"; and
"a society to create a more loving, less fearful world."

[Quotes from the flyer titled "The Standard Celeration Society," developed by John O. Cooper when serving as President of the Standard Celeration Society.]

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When was the Standard Celeration Society formed?

1992. While there were earlier informal meetings where forming a Standard Celeration Society was discussed, the Society officially came into being in 1992.

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Who has served as President of the Standard Celeration Society?

Ogden R. Lindsley
John O. Cooper
Stephen A. Graf
Charles T. Merbitz
Abigail B. Calkin

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Who has managed the SCListServ and the SCS web site?

List Master: Rick Kubina, June 1997- present

WebMasters:
Dave Feeney, 1996 - May 1999;
Richard Anderson, June 1999 - October 2002;
<none>, October 2002 - present

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Standard Celeration Charting Q & A

What does our Standard Celeration Chart do?

[This question and its answer was contributed by Dr. Ogden R. Lindsley, in a message posted to the SC List on 9-9-2000.]

Hi All: You often hear people ask, "What does our Standard Celeration Chart Do?" Of the many answers, one of the best is, "It simplifies things."

It simplifies charting so that six year olds can learn it and teach it to others.
It simplifies chart reading, making it so fast that we can share charts at 2 minutes each.
It simplifies chart checking so much that you can check for x2 learning on 60 charts posted on a ten foot stretch of wall as you walk past without slowing your pace.
It simplifies understanding of all growth and decay. An example of this is how our standard chart simplifies the famous Fibonacci series.

In the early 1970's when I worked out "ChartStat" I was amazed to find that almost every mathematical series, that I had learned years ago in calculus, was a straight line on our standard chart. The formulas for harmonic series, and Fibonacci series, and others, were very different. But they were straight lines, just at different angles, different constant multiples, and therefore different celerations.

The Fibonacci series, that Owen White finds so interesting in his "Log" and "Power" charts List serv post, where the next number is the sum of the two numbers before it, follows:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946, 17711, 28657, 46368, 75025, 121393, 196418, 317811, 514229, 832040, 1346269....

What surprised me, and will surprise Owen, and should surprise you, is that the Fibonacci is merely a times 1.618 series,

5 x 1.618 = 8, 8 x 1.618 = 13, 13 x 1.618 = 21, etc

This means, of course, that it forms a straight line on our Standard Celeration Chart.

Charted on a daily chart, x1.618 per day makes a straight line celeration of about x47 per week. Charted on a daily chart at x1.618 per week makes a celeration of x1.6 per week. Charted on a yearly chart at x1.618 per year makes a straight line celeration of x10 every five years.

When things are actually only multiplying, we simplify by telling how much they multiply. No need to create puzzles as did Fibonacci, and White, by calling attention to a strange addition formula to describe constant multiple growth. Describing multiplication by addition just complicates and confuses.

Resist being led back to Fibonacci and the year 1228. Think multiply!

We have a good thing going for us. We have multiplication!

Keep it Simple. Keep it multiply. Keep it graphic. Keep it standard.

As ever, Og

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Why do you use the Standard Celeration Chart?

[This question and its answer was contributed by Dr. Rick Kubina, in a private email message.]

Figure 1: an equal-interval or add-subtract chart

People use graphic designs (e.g., graphs and charts) to "make sense" out of quantitative information. Different graphic designs can lead to different interpretations of the data. Because most graphic designs use "times series*" the Standard Celeration Chart (SCC) offers numerous advantages in interpreting quantitative information. For example the SCC represents data "proportionally" instead of "absolutely." A look at the data from Kubina (1999) shows an example of data represented absolutely (Figure 1 shows an equal-interval or add-subtract chart) and proportionally (Figure 2 shows a Standard Celeration Chart). Vastly different interpretations result from viewing the same data on different graphic designs (equal-interval versus the Standard Celeration Chart).

The Standard Celeration Chart also contains many other advantages. The following lists some of the advantages of using the Standard Celeration Chart:

A Standard Celeration Chart displays behavioral frequencies, celeration changes, and bounce that correspond to the natural flow of behavior.
SCC's pre-constructed, standard nature, means individual users will not have to concern themselves with "design variation" issues, or factors that distort the true nature of the data.
Evidence suggests that Kindergarten children (Bates & Bates, 1971) through senior citizens (Kubina, Haertel, & Cooper, 1994) can learn how to use and understand the Standard Celeration Chart.
Standard display permits chart readers to react in a similar, and quicker, manner to the same data, lessens the chance of committing interpretation errors due to design variations, and allows those with "differing histories with interpret data effectively" (Johnston & Pennypacker, 1993, p. 320).
SCC can facilitate new discoveries when placing behavior on a frequency spectrum (Lindsley, 1991).

Please refer to Pennypacker, Koenig, & Lindsley (1972) for other technical details of the Standard Celeration Chart.

*Time series- a graphic design which has "one dimension marching along to the regular rhythm of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, or millennia" (Tufte, 1983, p. 28) and another dimension showing the quantitative value of some event or occurrence.

References

Bates, S., & Bates, D. F. (1971). "...and a child shall lead them": Stephanie's chart story. Teaching Exceptional Children, 3(3), 111-113.

Johnston, J. M., & Pennypacker, H. S. (1993). Strategies and tactics of behavior research (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kubina, R. M. (1999). [Repeated readings monitored by a preservice teacher]. Unpublished raw data.

Kubina, R. M., Haertel, M. W., & Cooper, J. O. (1994). Reducing negative inner behavior of Senior Citizens: The one-minute counting procedure. Journal of Precision Teaching, 11(2), 28-35.

Lindsley, O. R. (1991). Precision Teaching's unique legacy from B. F. Skinner. Journal of Behavioral Education, 1(2), 253-266.

Pennypacker, H. S., Koenig, C. H., & Lindsley, O. R. (1972). Handbook of the standard behavior chart. Kansas City, KS: Precision Media.

Tufte, E. R. (1983). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

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Why was x2.0 from corner to corner chosen for our Standard Chart?

[Answer contributed by Dr. Ogden Lindsley, 17 September 2000.]

This question is more complicated than a simple why. Our standard chart was not flippantly designed overnight. It resulted from fifteen years of full time thinking and much careful testing in practice.

In 1955 at my Harvard Behavior Research Laboratory I found we needed at least a 4 cycle multiply chart for daily tracking human behavior. When my chronic psychotic patients accelerated out of the 0 to 70 responses per hour add scale on their daily charts we had to rechart on a 0 to 700 scale. When they accelerated out the top of that we recharted on a 0 to 7000 per hour scale. A few accelerated out of that and we recharted on a 0 to 70,000 per hour scale. This told me we needed at least a 4 cycle multiply scale up the short side of a standard chart. All commercial charts had their multiply scales up the long side. I was so busy grant hustling and drug screening that I never took time to design and custom print a standard multiply chart that I knew we needed.

From 1965 through 1967 I knew we needed 6 times ten multiply cycles for the full spread of human behavior frequencies, from 1 a day to over 300 a minute. My students' dissertations of that time show that I had not yet decided on a standard time scale across the bottom which determines the corner to corner celeration or learning angle value.

Tom Caldwell's 1967 telecoaching dissertation contained eight 6 cycle by 25 day charts. Eric Haughton's 1967 tailoring consequences dissertation contained one 3 cycle by 9 minute, four 6 cycle by 9 minute, one 3 cycle by 40 days, and three 6 cycle by 40 days charts. Ann Duncan's 1967 comparison of rates of gifted with normal children dissertation displayed three 6 cycle by category, and three 6 cycle by 6 cycle correlation charts. The data for these dissertations were collected in 1965 and 1966. We had not yet chosen standard chart time dimensions and a standard celeration angle.

Carl Koenig, Joe Edwards, and I measured weekly celerations in around fifty acceleration and fifty deceleration projects done by our educational research group. We found the maximum acceleration was x8 and the middle x1.4 per week. Our largest deceleration was /7 with a middle of /1.4 per week. We recharted twenty five studies published in behavior therapy and special education journals and found their middle acceleration was also x1.4 and their middle deceleration was also /1.4. This meant we must design our standard charts to display x1.4 and /1.4 celeration angles clearly.

I decided to set corner to corner at x2 and /2 to provide a celeration or learning aim above what we were then accomplishing at x1.4 and /1.4 per week. Keeping the frame at overhead projector and computer screen size meant that our time scale would be 140 days or 20 weeks. This gave us about one school semester on each chart sheet. Joe Edwards' 1969 dissertation contained 40 standard 6 times ten multiply cycle by 140 day charts. Edward's charts were collected from a learning disability classroom in the fall of 1967.

Doubling and halving have been deep in the heart of our culture for hundreds of years. This strengthened my choice of x2 per week. All living cells double their number by dividing in half. Children have shouted, "Double or nothing," and "I double dare you" in their games over the years. Our language has the words half-baked, half-hearted, and half-assed. The ancient game of backgammon has a doubling cube to indicate the current value of the stake as a result of doubling. An ancient Persian legend tells of the vizier who invented chess choosing as his reward a grain of rice on the first square, two grains on the second square, and doubled from there on to the sixty fourth square which bankrupted the kingdom. The sixty fourth square would have 16 followed by 18 zeros, or 16 quintillion grains of rice! An equally ancient French legendary question asks about a lily pad in a pond that doubles every day. When the pond is half covered, how many days will it take to fully cover the pond with lily pads? One day!

Doubling time has been used for over a century in economics and future studies to describe and compare growth. World population doubles every 40 years (2.1 % increase per year, x1.021 celeration per year, x1.110 celeration every 5 years). Bank deposits at 7% and world fertilizer consumption double every 10 years (7% increase per year, x1.07 celeration per year, x1.403 celeration every 5 years).

Half-life has been used by physicists to describe the rate of radioactive decay for about a century. Physicians also use half-life to describe the rate of decay of drugs in our bodies. After two half-lives one quarter of the radioactivity is left, proving that half-life is really just divide by two. Radium's half-life is 22 years (3.2% decrease per years, /1.032 celeration per year, /1.171 celeration every 5 years). Uranium's half-life is 269 x (10)5 years.

The 12,000 different projects on 1,223 different behaviors stored in our Behavior Bank computer supported our choice of x2.0 (Lindsley, Koenig, Nichol, Kantor, and Young, 1971). Carl Koenig's 1972 dissertation demonstrated that our standard chart would accurately straight line project 5 to 7 frequencies 50% of the time.

Chung-Jung Liao's 1984 thesis collected 176 standard charts published in two books, two journal issues, and four volumes of the Journal of Precision Teaching. Chung-Jung found a celeration spread of x10 to /5 per week. The middle acceleration was x1.4 and the deceleration /1.4. Kathy Porter's 1985 dissertation recharted 576 percentage interval records from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis from 1968 through 1984. Kathy found middle before celerations for both acceleration and deceleration targets of x1.0 with a spread of x18 to /100 per week. The middle during celerations were x1.0 for acceleration targets and /1.2 per week for deceleration targets. Deborah Ehling's 1986 dissertation recharted 640 frequency or number charts from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis from 1968 through 1984. Deborah found middle during celerations were x1.0 for 352 acceleration targets and /1.3 per week for the 288 celeration targets.

The celerations on our standard charts from the Behavior Bank and these dissertations supported our choice of corner to corner to be x2.0 per week, an angle of 34 degrees.

References

Caldwell, T. E. (1967). Can pupil performance rates tell us when a student teacher is ready for her own class? Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Duncan, A. D. W. (1967). Behavior rates of gifted and regular elementary school children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Edwards, J. S. (1969). Precisely teaching children labeled learning disabled. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1970, 34, 5162A. (University Microfilms No. 70-11. 017).

Ehling, D. G. (1986). Standard Celeration Chart summary of Applied Behavior Analysis effects. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

Haughton, E. C. (1967). A practical way of individually tailoring classroom consequences. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Koenig, C. H. (1971). The behavior bank: a system for sharing precise information. Teaching Exceptional Children, 3(3), 157.

Koenig, C. H. (1972). Charting the future course of behavior. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Liao, C. (1984). A quantitative review of published Standard Celeration Charts (1970-1983). Unpublished master's thesis. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

Lindsley, O. R., Koenig, C. H., Nichol, J. B., Kanter, D. B., & Young, N. A. (1971). Handbook of precise behavior facts: Listings of the first twelve thousand published precise behavior management projects. Kansas City, Kansas: Precision Media. 2 volumes.

Porter, K. L. (1985). Standard Celeration Chart summary of individual-percentage-interval recording studies from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 1968-1984. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

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What year did BRCo publish and sell the first Standard Behavior Charts? (The blue, six-cycle, 140 days chart).

September of 1967. [Behavior Research Company] BRCo was started to sell conjugate reinforcer arranging apparatus in 1957. Rob Dalyrimple, my apparatus technician, constructed the conjugate arrangers. BRCo sold them.

[Answer contributed by Dr. Ogden R. Lindsley, in a message posted on the SC List on 9-17-2000.]

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Who Developed the Standard Celeration Chart?

[Question and Answer contributed anonymously. September, 2000.]

As described in Potts, Eshleman, & Cooper (1993), "Ogden Lindsley, Eric Haughton, (and several other graduate students of Lindsley's), Sandy Houston (the administrative assistant), and Helen Brennan (the printer) together developed the Standard Celeration Chart. Lindsley (1991b) acknowledged the significant contributions that Haughton made to the construction of the chart. This team considered several features while designing the chart, including its appearance, paper type, color, durability, and dimensions." (p. 182) As Lindsley notes above in his FAQ answer, those other graduate students included Tom Caldwell, Carl Koenig, Joe Edwards, and Ann Duncan.

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Why is the Standard Celeration Chart printed light blue?

[Question and Answer contributed anonymously, and edited by Dr. Ogden Lindsley. September, 2000.]

In the summer of 1967 Ogden Lindsley and his student Carl Koenig printed and tested out charts of various colours and discovered that blue worked best. As noted in Potts, Eshleman, & Cooper (1993), "the research team evaluated [charting speed], charting accuracy, charting fatigue, and color preference with charts printed in three shades each of red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, and light brown. Most charters preferred a shade of green. The light blue chart, however, produced the highest [speed and] accuracy of charting and was more resistant to fatigue than green. The chart has appeared in light blue ever since this evaluation." (p.183) (Lindsley September 2000 comments added in [ ] brackets to to the quotation.)

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Precision Teaching Q & A

Why was it named Precision Teaching?

[Question and Answer contributed by Dr. Ogden Lindsley, September 2000.]

Ogden Lindsley (1972, Page 9) named Precision Teaching because "what was really new in our procedure was precision, we decided to use that as an adjective in front of whatever it was one was doing: hence in our case, "precision teaching." Lindsley (1971) hoped that the standard recording and charting system would be used throughout the behavioral fields as Precision School Psychology, Precision Social Work (Green & Morrow, 1972), Precision Speech Therapy (Johnson, 1972), and so on. The field experts would keep their name as the noun and use the adjective "precision" to describe the method standard to all.

REFERENCES

Green, J. K. & Morrow, W. R. (1972). Precision Social Work: general model and illustrative student projects with clients. Education for Social Work, 8, Fall, 19-29.

Johnson, T. S. (1972). Precision therapy is the way to go. In J. B. Jordan & L. S. Robbins (Eds.), Let's try doing something else kind of thing: Behavioral principles and the exceptional child (pp. 40-50). Arlington, VA: Council for Exceptional Children.

Lindsley, O. R. (1972). From Skinner to Precision Teaching: The child knows best. In J. B. Jordan & L. S. Robbins (Eds.), Let's try doing something else kind of thing: Behavioral principles and the exceptional child (pp. 1-11). Arlington, VA: Council for Exceptional Children. (page 9)

Lindsley, O. R. (1971). Precise behavioral management system. In M.C. Reynolds (Ed.) Proceedings of the Conference on Psychology and the Process of Schooling in the Next Decade: Alternative Conceptions (pp. 121-130). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Dept. of AudioVisual Extension.

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What is a Chart Parent?

[Question and Answer contributed by Dr. Ogden Lindsley, September 2000.]

Your chart parent first taught you to use the Standard Celeration Chart.

If you are having trouble learning to Standard Celeration Chart from printed handbooks and articles, post a chart parent request along with your home address and telephone number on our 170 member [as of September, 2000] SCListServ. Joining instructions appear here at www.celeration.org. A chart parent living near you will reply to your email request.

Chart parenting, is still our most effective way to spread and share our science. Chart parenting has taught where our handbooks and seminars have failed. Chart parenting provides personal attention, proof that the teacher cares, one on one, and real time immediate feedback and correction. At any, or every point the learner can ask, "How?" or "Explain that over again." We wish there were more efficient ways to teach our SCC, but so far there doesn't seem to be. We need more charters in the X and Z generations! Keep up your chart parenting!

Chart children often invest a day plus three hours commuting to learn. But, the busier chart parent still invests a day! A day invested in one or two learners! Chart parent investment motivates chart children. Should we add a slogan, "Care enough to Chart Parent?"

Chart parents offer continued support after the initial teaching session over telephone and occasional visits. Most all new charters welcome the emotional support of knowing there is someone to call. However, few new charters have to make follow up support calls.

The name "chart parent" was used by Steve Graf, Harvey Sepler, and Carl Binder at the first Standard Celeration Chart Data-Sharing session at the Association for Behavior Analysis convention in Dearborn, Michigan in 1980. The parenting theme was later amplified by Jim Pollard, chart child of Bea Barrett who taught Jim to chart at meetings in Bea's laboratory in Fernald School, Waltham, MA. The theme of Jim's talk at the 1989 Precision Teaching Conference in San Diego spelled out the Precision Teaching Family. We have chart parents, chart grandparents, chart uncles, and even chart cousins. Ever since 1980 then, we list both our name and our chart parent's name on an overhead transparency, when entering a chart sharing room. This list becomes the order in which we take turns sharing charts. We have 1 minute to describe our projected standard chart. Chart sharing sessions have become a tradition at annual Behavior Analysis and Precision Teaching conferences. Steve Graf and Jim Pollard often chair these national chart shares and arrange their listing on conference programs. Local weekly and regional monthly chart shares continue to be the best way to maintain and support standard charting skill.

This tradition recognizes the chart parent teacher who taught the charter at every chart share. Thirty standard charters and their parents follow.

CHARTER: PARENT:

Richard Anderson - Jesus Rosales
Carl Binder - Bea Barrett
Bea Barrett - Og Lindsley
Ray Beck - Eric Haughton
Anne DesJardins - Eric Haughton
Ann Duncan - Og Lindsley
Sue Casson - Kent Johnson
John Cooper - John Eshleman
Nathan Crow - Kent Johnson
John Eshleman - Steve Graf
Normand Giroux - Og Lindsley
Steve Graf - Og Lindsley
Elizabeth Haughton - Eric Haughton
Eric Haughton - Og Lindsley
Matthew Israel - Og Lindsley
Kent Johnson - Bea Barrett
Rick Kubina - Steve Graf
Og Lindsley - Fred Skinner
Giordana Hrga - Og Lindsley
Michael Maloney - Eric Haughton
Claudia McDade - Chuck Merbitz
Richard McManus - Carl Binder
Chuck Merbitz - Hank Pennypacker
Hank Pennypacker - Og Lindsley
Jesus Rosales - Og Lindsley
Red Sarna - Richard McManus
Ian Spence - Ann Duncan
Clay Starlin - Eric Haughton
Bob Worsham -Matthew Israel
Owen White - Eric Haughton

This list should not be considered a hall of fame for PT. It was put together without much thought to display a sample of chart parent, grandparent, and great grandparent, relations within our PT family.

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Doing Precision Teaching: How do I pick a behavior to start with?